Conventional electrical connectors include a locking mechanism for locking corresponding electrical connector components together, while simultaneously providing an unlocking mechanism for disengaging the corresponding electrical connector components.
Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-173173A illustrates an optical connector having a conventional unlocking mechanism for disengaging an optical transmit module and a receive module. The optical connector has a housing and a slide cover, whereby the housing includes a lock lever, and the slide cover includes an abutment section and an operation section. When the operation section of the slide cover is pulled by a finger to cause the slide cover to be slid rearward, the abutment section displaces the lock lever to allow the transmit and receive modules to unlock and disengage from each other. This design permits the transmit and receive modules to be unlocked and disengaged in one operation.
Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-258568A also illustrates an optical connector having a conventional unlocking mechanism, which includes a housing and a cover, whereby the housing has a lock lever, and the cover has a pressing plate section and a remote operation lever. When the remote operation lever is operated, the pressing plate section drives a lock base section of the lock lever to release locking.
However, the conventional connectors disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2005-173173A and 2009-258568A both utilize an unlocking mechanism that is separate from the housing, which results in a locking and release mechanism having a large number of parts.